With the deadline looming for Turner Prize 2005 nominations, Craig Scutt takes a look at whether public funds should be used to fund what MP Kim Howells once infamously labelled ‘cold, mechanical conceptual bullshit.’
In 2002 the short-listed Turner Prize exhibits were spectacularly upstaged by a room in which patrons were invited to write their views of the exhibition on little pieces of paper and pin them to the walls. The room made newspaper headlines and was regarded by many as the highlight of the exhibition. For possibly the first time and certainly on such a large scale, the public voiced its opinion on the cream of contemporary British art.
